Today I will be sharing a QnA session I had with Anthony Glass. Anthony is the director of strength and conditioning for the Olympic Sports at Ohio State University. Basically, he oversees the strength and conditioning for all sports at Ohio State not named football.

I’ve known Anthony for a few years now and he was kind enough to answer a few questions that I threw out to him. This is the first interview I have done with someone of his stature and hope to have many more for you throughout the upcoming months.

Being my first one, I gave him questions relating to speed definitely and then about himself and the sport training. Please feel free to give me other questions in the comments below that you would like me to ask future speed and strength professionals. Hopefully, this will give you more insight into what they do.

What is your current position and how long have you held that position?

Director of Strength and Conditioning Olympic Sports, 12 years.

What is your educational background/certifications and what has some of your past work experience included?

EDUCATION: Master’s of Education from Northern Illinois, Bachelor’s Degree from Appalachian State

CERTIFICATIONS: MSCC, CSCS, H.F.I., USAW,

PAST WORK EXPERIENCE: University of Georgia 4 years and Boston College for 1 year.

What are the job responsibilities of your current position?

Oversee daily operations of S&C facilities and 8 full time employees, make sure that philosophy and policies are being followed, coordinate responsibilities to staff, oversee team scheduling, oversee staff scheduling, oversee yearly budget and evaluate staff annually.

When it comes to improving your athlete’s speed, what is your philosophy that you try to adhere to when designing the program?

The first thing is to determine what speed requirements are needed for the sport and second to critique the athlete’s technique with sound coaching as well as improving strength, since strength is an important component of speed. So therefore technique and strength are extremely important when designing a speed program.

In your typical off-season program, how much emphasis is placed on developing your speed program? Does it depend on the sport?

Emphasis on speed development depends on the sport, if speed is important component in an off-season program then 60% is placed on speed development.

Are there any particular instances that you recall where an athlete made such an improvement in speed during your off-season program that it really amazed you? What made it amazing?

Testing is very important for determining improvement, we utilize both hand and electronic times when testing our athletes in speed drills. The most improvement I have seen in an off-season program is lateral speed, with athletes decreasing their times by .50 sec.

What is the one thing you think a speed program absolutely has to have to be successful? Why?

In order for a speed program to be successful, first the right surface is needed and second, a coach that knows how to properly instruct, and lastly variety, once an athlete reaches a plateau then variety is needed to continue to see improvements.

In your field, you have the opportunities to work with all sorts of incredible athletes. Is there one athlete that really stands out from the rest, not only because of the athletic ability, but work ethic?

Stacey Gordon, an All-American volleyball player. **Side note – Stacey played at Ohio State from 2001 to 2004 and was inducted into Ohio State’s Hall of Fame in 2010. After college, she continued to play professionally overseas.

What is the best thing you like about your job?

The best thing I like about my job is working with young adults.

Anything else you want to add about speed training, your job, etc.?

In order to be fast, you must train fast.